Practice question · Sort into groups
Sort each statement by whether it accurately describes Zeno’s paradoxes.
Groups: Accurate · Inaccurate
- The Arrow concerns what motion consists in at an instant
- They were intended to defend Parmenides dialectically
- Zeno believed he had proved that nothing ever moves
- They rest on an arithmetical mistake about infinite series
- They target the assumptions of plurality and motion
Hints
- Zeno was arguing against opponents rather than for a positive thesis.
- His reasoning contained no computational error.
Show the answer
Accurate: They were intended to defend Parmenides dialectically, They target the assumptions of plurality and motion, The Arrow concerns what motion consists in at an instant
Inaccurate: Zeno believed he had proved that nothing ever moves, They rest on an arithmetical mistake about infinite series
Why
Zeno’s aim was defensive and his reasoning contained no error, which is what makes the paradoxes durable. They are still discussed because the questions about supertasks and the composition of time were never fully closed.
Practise Zeno and Melissus
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Philosophy I is free to start.
More questions on Zeno and Melissus
- Why did Zeno construct the paradoxes, given that he did not expect anyone to stop believing in motion?
- Achilles runs at 10 metres per second and the tortoise at 1 metre per second with a 100 metre head start.…
- A convergent series demonstrates that an infinite sequence of shrinking intervals yields a finite total. What…
- Which claims about the modern treatment of Zeno’s paradoxes are correct?
- Melissus agreed with Parmenides that what-is is complete and bounded, like a well-rounded sphere.
- Arrange the steps of the Achilles paradox in order.